Day 6 of Bonding

Andrew has become more and more playful each day. He is so smart and only needs to be shown something once before he gives it a try. We handed him the camera today and he immediately put it up to his eyes and tried to push buttons. He is also coloring some…well maybe it’s scribbling but we’re easily entertained. Lainey was able to play with him more today and she is so good with him. He just watches her every move. We are surprised at how much Lainey and Andrew are alike in personality. Andrew so wants to walk and run. We’ve seen him crawl but with us he only wants to hold our hands and walk. He smiles more each day and even laughs some. He is very ticklish, especially his ears. We couldn’t enjoy our time more with him. We just wish we could visit him longer. Two hours goes by quickly and it is hard to hand him back to the caregivers. The baby house director sets the visitation hours. We sign in each day and the log will be used as proof in court that we are fulfilling the bonding period.
We’ve already started thinking about how hard it will be to leave him. Bonding has happened very quickly for us. He is so easy to love. He has such an easy going, curious personality. We have yet to see him cry. A couple of times he’s stuck his bottom lip out. That’s it. Otherwise, it’s time to play. He does get frustrated when we take toys away (like colors that he’s putting in his mouth). He waves his hands up and down to let us know his displeasure. He shares his toys. If we ask him for a toy, he hands it to us. I’ll try to stop bragging now…
We met a couple for lunch yesterday. We actually met them for the first time at the Dept. of Education when we were all there for our initial meeting. When they walked in, Mark said out loud “try to pick out the Americans”. They laughed and we found out they are from Mississippi also, only a couple hours away from us. We exchanged numbers and were finally able to get together yesterday. They have their 4 year old daughter with them and Lainey was very happy to have someone to play with. The restaurant, Mad Murphy’s, has a play ground. For anyone coming to Almaty, we have found Mad Murphy’s to be a great restaurant. The food is good, they have wi-fi, and they will call a cab for you. We live on the other side of town so we need a cab to get home.
We’re attaching a picture from our trip to Panfilov Park. We went there a couple of days ago. The park contains several impressive war memorials from their civil war and World War II. The picture is of the Zenkov Cathedral which is on the park grounds. It was built in 1904. It is built entirely of wood and without nails. The park is nice and we were able to spend a couple of hours there.
Almaty is a very interesting place. The people are beautiful (tall and thin like models) and very diverse. There are so many different ethnicities here. There’s a lot to share but we’ll save that for another day.
We feel so blessed. There have been things that did not go smoothly since we’ve arrived but we have been at peace. That peace could definitely only come from above.

It's Official

We have officially committed to the cutest boy in Kazakhstan. He is 18 months old and very sweet. He is small for his age and walks while holding our hands. He is right on track for his circumstances. The standard is a child is delayed 1 month for every 3 months in an orphanage. He is actually very alert and very interactive.

We are having lots of fun playing with Andrew (his soon to be name). We have a great video of him laughing as Mark took him down a slide in the play yard today. It's amazing how much he has come out of his shell in such a short amount of time. He was actually reaching out for us when we arrived today.

We have decided not to include pictures of Andrew on our blog until we have custody. I had thought that our agency didn’t want us to give out any information until after court anyway. I have since found out that I misunderstood their instructions. We can give out information since we have formally accepted – we’re just being cautious on our blog.

Lots of folks have asked how Lainey is doing...amazingly well for a 6 year old. She would love to find some kids who speak English to play with. She is a very social child so that has been tough on occasion. Overall, she is being very flexible.

We have been treated very well by the CHI in-country staff. They have really doted on Lainey and that has helped.

A little more about our experience here - we are so glad we did a lot of reading before coming. It has helped with the culture shock. We are feeling really comfortable buying groceries, exchanging money, eating out, and walking the city. We are only able to visit Andrew from 10-12 pm each day so we have lots of time to acclimate.

As for the baby house, I don't think I was completely prepared for how I would feel as we are observed caring for Andrew. After delivering Lainey, the hospital sent us home after 2 days and no instructions. At the time, I thought that was scary. With Andrew, we are instructed in every area and told "nyet" many times. The head doctor is very strict. We appreciate that she wants the children to remain well and Kaz has their own beliefs about how to accomplish that. We try to respect their goal of caring for the kids. For example, we wanted to look at his cute baby toes so we took off his socks. We were told to put them back on and they said "you Americans like feet - you need to put his socks back on". We're learning.

Great Day

We went to the baby house today and met a wonderful little boy. We don't have everything formalized so we can't share any details yet. Ok, one detail, he's so cute.

I am including a picture from our trip up Koktobe (the foothills) on Sunday on a tram. It was beautiful up there.

The weather has cooled down since the weekend and it's been great.

We will update with more details as soon as we can.

Dept of Education Approval

We woke up early this morning anticipating a meeting with the Dept of Education (DOE). Our coordinator worked all day Friday-today to get this meeting scheduled. We finally received our approval at about 6:00 pm today. To receive the approval, we had to go to a large government building and meet with a DOE official. She questioned us on various topics. She was somewhat intimidating at first but she "melted" (as our translator said) toward the end. We think Lainey may have had something to do with that. Mark said the meeting went very much like he anticipated.

We hope to go to the baby house around 10 tomorrow. We'll post as we have more news.

Change in Plans - We're Here

Our last blog post showed that we were leaving June 28. Due to full flights, we were not going to be able to leave until July 1. Well, then we got a phone call from the agency on Friday June 15 and they wanted us in Almaty Friday June 22. We made the flight arrangements and boarded a plane Wednesday and landed Friday morning. There were many late nights & early mornings of preparations before we actually got on the plane but we’ll skip all of those details.

We were supposed to meet with the Dept of Education and then go to the baby house upon arrival. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we were not able to do either. We are using the weekend to settle in and recover from the flight. We are learning our way around the city and finding it pretty easy to maneuver.

Our driver, translator, and coordinator are all very nice. They want us to feel comfortable in their city. We started out in one apartment on Friday and then moved to another by that evening. Our coordinator worked very hard all day Friday to find something more comfortable and affordable for us.

Lainey is quite the traveling trooper. She seems to have already recovered from the time difference (11 hours with daylight savings). Mark & I are getting there.

We hope to begin the adoption process on Monday. Until then, we are going to enjoy being tourists. Almaty is a very large city and we are able to walk to most anything we need. We’ll post again in a day or two with an update.

We appreciate your continued prayers.

Paka Paka

Travel Dates!

We have travel dates!!! We are trying to book flights for 6/28-7/20. It seems the flights to Europe are full this summer so "getting over the water" (as our travel agent said) will be tight.

Just to update on our last couple of days , we received a call yesterday from our agency saying that Kaz wanted us there on Monday. That meant 5 days notice. Our agency said there was no way it could be done & we agreed totally. They were able to get revised dates so we'll leave 2 weeks from today. We can get everything done in 2 weeks - just have to get in high gear.

We will continue to update from Kazakhstan on our progress and adventures.

Paka, Paka (bye bye in Russian)

Almaty City!

We were notified on Tuesday, May 29th that our paperwork had moved to the Dept. of Education and we have been assigned to Almaty City.

We had hoped & prayed for this area and are excited that we will be adopting in Almaty City. The baby houses in Almaty have only allowed Americans to adopt over the last couple of months. They have been closed to Americans for the last 2 years. We are constantly amazed at how God works out the details (even when we think we can't stand one more delay - He knows better than us). However our adoption works out - He's in control.

We are still trying to figure out what we need to take and how we can fit it all in our bags. Our bedroom has stuff stacked up in anticipation of the trip. Our agency has said that we should get travel dates in about 1-3 weeks. From that call, we should travel within 2-3 weeks.